1st Day with Michael

Okay, so you have seen photos of our son, now I want to tell you about Sunday July 12th. I actually had been able to get a really good night sleep - since Meg had me walking all over Beijing (well, we did do the subway too). But I do think that all of that exercise (in the heat) helped me to sleep off some jet lag - I am actually doing well so far. Okay, so I woke up and had another amazing breakfast with Meg and then I went up to my room to freshen up and pray before I was suppose to meet my son in the hotel lobby at 10 am. I got my cameras and gifts for the orphanage director and some toys that I was hoping would win Michael over and left my room about 9:40 - thinking that would give me some time before Michael arrived to get settled. Well, I walk into the lobby and see the other 2 families talking to their children!! They had come early!!!! I ran over to Meg, handed her my camera and Flip video camera, and walked towards the director who was holding my son!! She tried to hand him to me, but he started crying and grabbing onto her. I told her to wait, ran and got out 2 Matchbox cars to show him. He loves cars, so he was immediately drawn to them. He left the director's arms and started playing with the cars. I took one and we started to play together a bit. He even made some cautious eye contact with me! After about 10 minutes, we all went to a conference room where we had to get some paperwork in order. Michael let me carry him!! He is such a little peanut! It is really hard to tell how different his size is from Danielle who is 3 months older. He is definitely skinnier, but he is a good height. So we go to the conference room and he sits quietly on my lap. After a while I got out some Goldfish crackers and gave him one at time, handing them to him from my eye level to his, making eye contact each time. He ate them all up. After our "business" was done, I took him up to my room and Meg ran to a restaurant and brought us some lunch. Boy, can he eat!! He loved everything that we offered him. I do have to give him one bite at a time, otherwise he will shove it all into his mouth - we will need to work on that. I tried to give him a nap, but after his bottle he shot back up and starting playing with his toys. I brought along a Thomas the Train rev-n-go set and he was absolutely amazed with it!! He couldn't get enough!! After his "nap time", we met the rest of the group and we went to a children's department store - it was absolutely insane!!! I was completely overstimulated, and so was Michael. I have seen that when things get overwhelming, he tends to shut down. So that is what he did while I had to find him a bathing suit - since I left it at home!! Well, I had the choice of biker shorts, swim trunks or speedos - I choose swim trunks. I also bought him a Winnie the Pooh DVD and children's music CD - all in Chinese. He loves the music, not too into the DVD which is just fine!! When we got back to our room, he started to come out of his shell a little more. We walked to get dinner and brought it back to the room, and then I decided to try giving him a bath. He didn't want to, but when I put some of his stacking cup toys into the water, he enjoyed playing in the tub. He did great!! After bath I brushed his teeth, gave him a bottle and lay down with him on the bed. He drank a little, and then wiggled around for a minute and fell fast asleep. He was asleep by 8:30 and woke up at 6:20 am. I was amazed!!

Now, as far as his health. He has a cold, so please pray that it goes away. He is able to walk, climb stairs, etc - there seems to be no trouble with his motor skills at all - PRAISE GOD!!! When I received him, he didn't have on diapers - or even underwear!! OOps!! The director told me that he should have on a diaper, especially at night. I have had him in pull-ups and they have been dry the entire time!!! Whenever he "indicates" the need, I put him on the potty and he goes!! He even had a dry diaper after sleeping all night!! Another answered prayer!! Now, he does have bad teeth. His top 3 or 4 teeth look like they may have bottle rot. I am guessing that he goes to bed with a bottle of milk stuck in his mouth. Luckily they are baby teeth and they will fall out - probably sooner than later. The other thing that came as a surprise is that it turns out he may not have been in foster care at all. All throughout his referral report it tells of a foster mother, but the director said that he had been in the orphanage the whole time. Meg pursued this, and the director finally admitted that she didn't know for sure and that she would double check. She made a few phone calls, but hasn't heard anything yet. She will let our guide know when she finds out. We are not refusing to adopt him since he was in the orphanage, it just was a little bit of a shock. All is well though. He is becoming less shell-shocked as time passes. He will be just fine. He is definitely more active when we are in our room instead of when we are with the rest of our group. Things are going so well - your prayers are definitely working!! I am so grateful for all of our prayer warriors - we couldn't be doing this without you!!! I will give more updates soon!!!